Too Much Turkey Edition//Game #22: St. Louis Blues vs. Calgary Flames

I was there tonight great atmosphere the whole time. If you'd have told me the whole arena would be chanting Elliott at the end of novmember I'd've looked at you like you were crazy. Good game and big win

The Blues have been poor at faceoffs every year that McDonald has been with The Blues. They haven't yet had him work with the weak players.

Backes, Oshie and Berglund have all been improving, but painfully slowly. But why is long-time veteran, Arnott, so ineffective?

Good question about Arnott...you think he would have learned by now. For fun, I looked back and he has never really had an outstanding sv%. Backes' is just horrendous. This is one of the reasons I think he'll never win the Selke. The Selke almost always goes to a centre, and that player is pretty much always stellar at face-offs. The one player I noticed is surprisingly good at face-offs is Sobotka.

Good question about Arnott...you think he would have learned by now. For fun, I looked back and he has never really had an outstanding sv%. Backes' is just horrendous. This is one of the reasons I think he'll never win the Selke. The Selke almost always goes to a centre, and that player is pretty much always stellar at face-offs. The one player I noticed is surprisingly good at face-offs is Sobotka.

Good question about Arnott...you think he would have learned by now. For fun, I looked back and he has never really had an outstanding FO%. Backes' is just horrendous. This is one of the reasons I think he'll never win the Selke. The Selke almost always goes to a centre, and that player is pretty much always stellar at face-offs. The one player I noticed is surprisingly good at face-offs is Sobotka.

Arnott is big and strong. But winning faceoffs is more about positioning, anticipation and timing. That comes with experience, noting what others do, and heeding advice from successful players. Apparently, Arnott never thought improving his skills in that area was very important.

If he's going to be the #3 centre, he should work on his technique. He brings way too many losses of possession at key times.

At this point I think i'd put it at at least 50-50 that Ben Bishop gets traded

That could be a dangerous step though.
No offense intended to Elliot, he has been incredible this season, but at the same time, it would be a big risk to take expecting him to stay this good for a while.
Then again, maybe he's finally found that perfect mixture of team, timing, and confidence that could keep him playing this way for a while.

That could be a dangerous step though.
No offense intended to Elliot, he has been incredible this season, but at the same time, it would be a big risk to take expecting him to stay this good for a while.
Then again, maybe he's finally found that perfect mixture of team, timing, and confidence that could keep him playing this way for a while.

I'm not saying it's a step I'd take, but it seems to me that Ben Bishop has been given plenty of opportunities to make the Blues and he just hasn't done it. Meanwhile, they seem to be really high on Jake Allen.

I think we all believe this team is in win now mode. If they can get what they think is a missing piece in exchange for Ben Bishop, I'm willing to bet they do it

I'm not saying it's a step I'd take, but it seems to me that Ben Bishop has been given plenty of opportunities to make the Blues and he just hasn't done it. Meanwhile, they seem to be really high on Jake Allen.

I think we all believe this team is in win now mode. If they can get what they think is a missing piece in exchange for Ben Bishop, I'm willing to bet they do it

Bishop is (very) significantly outplaying Allen right now. I doubt very much that the Blues are comfortable with Allen as the #3 goalie on their depth chart and first call-up right now.

Besides, AHL goalies never have much trade value...there's very little chance that Bishop brings back (or is a significant part a deal) that returns anything good enough to be considered a missing piece.

The Blues didn't actually deserve to win that game, except Elliott stole it. Too many breakaways given up. Against most teams, that would have been 2 or 3 goals and a loss. They better start playing better if they want to avoid a humbling loss.

What a wonderful problem to have: two goalies playing at a very high level.